What’s next in Baltimore

Editor:

The election results are in and the citizens of Baltimore have spoken again. This time tan even greater percentage of the voters said “NO”. Sixty-five percent of the voters said “NO”, and that result was one percentage point higher than the previous election.

The administration even made changes to keep the “conservative by necessity” voters from voting “NO”, by giving them a “free ride” this time. One might think that this would result in the village administration abandoning this project and this time, listening to the electorate. I do not think that it will happen.

This council has “drank the kool-aid” served by Mayor Kalish. The “kool-aid” is the “myth” relating to the “growth of Baltimore”. It is time for that “myth” to either go away, or Mayor Kalish needs to back up the “myth” with fact. Mayor Kalish must show the voters exactly how he can prove that Baltimore is growing. I have been here for 50 years and my personal experience and official United States Census figures do NOT reflect the “growth of Baltimore”, in any significant numbers. Mayor Kalish, if I am wrong....prove it !

The present administration is responsible for the change in our village operation with the changes involving the conversion from the Board of Public Affairs to Village Administrator, and at a cost much greater. In the first eight years with a village administrator $669,040.03 was spent on that position alone.

I think the Board of Public Affairs was a much less expensive method of government, but this administration wanted to be ready for the “growth of Baltimore”. Along with the astronomical costs involved in this change, we got more and more rules and regulations regarding what we can do and how we must do it. We then got a “Service Superintendant”, then a Police Chief, and now a Village Engineer. All these positions were created and paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Mayor Kalish recently had a letter in the Eagle Gazette, asking voters to support the police levy. In that letter, he compared the Baltimore Police Department to the Basil Joint Fire District. The difference between those departments is the voters “voted” for the change before anything happened. With the Baltimore Police, your administration “changed” the Police Department, but when you found that you could not afford what you built, you then went to the taxpayers and asked them to “bail you out”. In this administration, citizen input is not asked for, and ignored when their plan is rejected.

I now see that a project that was initiated during the tenure of Village Administrator Hall is back on the agenda. That project is the is the east end sewer extension. I was told by the Baltimore Fiscal Officer that Village Administrator Brown discussed some “revenue issues” with the village council, and that was later confirmed by Village Administrator Brown. At this time, it appears that the project will go forward, apparently because “we need to be ready for the growth of Baltimore”. I guess that since this project was “born” during the term of Village Administrator Hall, and she was so highly regarded by our village administration, we might name this project the “Marsha Hall Memorial Sewer Extension”.

We could, like we did several years ago, pave some streets in Baltimore, but the enhancement of the Police Department and running a sewer line to “nowhere” are more important to this administration.

Voters in Baltimore need to not forget the “reckless” and “astronomical” spending of this administration and recall or replace all the people responsible for this lunacy. We must save our village from the “embarrassment” of a potential bankruptcy of the village. Thanks to the Enviromental Protection Agency and the “spenders” in the village administration, the outstanding debt of the Village of Baltimore is $ 8,705,557 on 12/31/2011. That debt amounts to a cost of nearly $ 3,000 for each and every person in Baltimore, and that does not include interest costs.

You have already seen what has happened to your water bill, and this may not be the end to the increased costs that are to be strapped to the backs of the taxpayers/ homeowners in our village.

Lets hope that the village administration will accept the “will of the voters” this time, but since “they” know more about what “we” need than “we” do, I highly doubt they will listen.